La déculturation du public du football comme facteur du hooliganisme. Mythe ou réalité ?

Abstract

Some authors consider the lower culture of football spectators as the origin and resort to hooliganism. The comperative study, led in basket-ball, football, rugby and volley-ball near 1 809 spectators and among 593 members belonging to the hard core of supporters' football clubs, shows that in fact the people resorting to violence are the cultivated ones in sport. Therefore the assumption of the spectators' lower culture is not operative and we have to look for violence origins, in the relations and competition between groups based on sport rivalries, in the previous feuds with supporters and in a territorial logic in total accordance with Thrasher's works about Chicago's gangs.